Union Minister of Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda launched a portal on tribal health and nutrition named ‘Swasthya’. It is a first of its kind portal, providing all health and nutrition related information of the tribal population of India on a single platform.

Tribal population in India

According to the 2011 Census, India is home to 10.4 crore tribal people.

As per a government report, tribal people are largely concentrated in ten states and in the northeast. Almost 90 per cent of the tribal population of the country lives in rural areas. There are 90 districts or 809 blocks with more than 50 per cent tribal population and they account for nearly 45 per cent of the Scheduled Tribe (ST) population in the country. In other words, almost 55 per cent of the tribal population lives outside these 809 tribal majority blocks. 

Over two-thirds of the tribal population is working in the primary sector and is heavily dependent on agriculture either as cultivators or as agricultural labourers. 

The tribals disproportionately share the burden of poverty, death, and diseases. Over 40 per cent of them live under poverty, over two-third work in the primary sector and only around 10 per cent of them have access to clean drinking water. 

The tribal areas also have an acute shortage of healthcare infrastructure and human resources with a 40 per cent shortfall in the number of primary healthcare centres and only 60 per cent of them having a doctor. Over 80 per cent of specialists’ positions at community health centers are vacant.

The ministry of tribal affairs is determined to change this narrative by ensuring data driven decision making, facilitating exchange of learnings and best practices and collaborating with development/private sector partners working to improve tribal health and nutrition indicators.

What are the features of Swasthya?

Swasthya (swasthya.tribal.gov.in) will curate innovative practices, research briefs, case studies, and best practices collected from different parts of India to facilitate the exchange of evidence, expertise and experiences. 

The ministry has recognised Piramal Swasthya as the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for knowledge management for health and nutrition. The CoE will engage with the ministry and provide inputs to drive evidence-based policy and decision-making pertaining to health and nutrition of the tribal population of India. 

Other initiatives by the ministry

GOAL (Going Online as Leaders): It is an initiative launched by the ministry of tribal affairs (MoTA) in partnership with Facebook India to digitally skill and empower 5,000 youths from tribal communities to become leaders of tomorrow by leveraging the power of digital technology. GOAL project is aimed at identifying and mobilising 2,500 renowned people from industry (policy makers and influencers), teachers, artists, entrepreneurs, social workers, etc known for their achievements in their domain areas, to personally mentor tribal youths across India. The initiative has been designed to allocate two mentees to a mentor. 

Online portals: The ministry has developed online portals namely DBT Tribal (https://dbttribal.gov.in/) and NGO Grants Online Application & Tracking System (https://ngograntsmota.gov.in/) for bringing in greater e-governance in implementation of welfare schemes for STs. In DBT Tribal portal, there are three main modules for pre-matric & post-matric scholarship. The ministry recently won the 66th SKOCH Gold Award for “Empowerment of Tribals through IT enabled Scholarship Schemes” under the guidance of DBT Mission.

Online Performance Dashboard “Empowering Tribals, Transforming India” was launched on August 10. Performance dashboard is an interactive and dynamic online platform that showcases updated and  real-time details of 11 schemes/initiatives of the ministry. The dashboard captures performance of five scholarship schemes, wherein every year about 30 lakh underprivileged ST beneficiaries reap benefit to the tune of Rs 2,500 crore. 

The dashboard (http://dashboard.tribal.gov.in) is part of Digital India Initiative to work towards empowering Scheduled Tribes and will bring efficiency and transparency in the system. The performance of tribal ministry and 37 other ministries which are required to spend an allocated amount of their budget for tribal welfare under Scheduled Tribe Component (STC) as per mechanism framed by NITI Aayog can be seen on various parameters on dashboard.

Newsletter: The ministry also launched ALEKH, a quarterly newsletter of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for knowledge management in health and nutrition. This first volume of the newsletter has been curated around COVID-19 response in the tribal regions.